Friday, February 28, 2014

Staunton, February 28 – Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s goal, as shown by the various provocations he has
arranged in recent days, is not to seize Crimea right now but rather to provoke
a civil war in Ukraine that will allow him to gain control over Ukraine by
posing as a peacemaker, according to Andrey Illarionov

Putin “does not want to fight now,” the Moscow economist and
commentator says. Rather, he wants for now that others including Ukrainians,
Russians and Crimean Tatars do so. That this is Putin’s plan is shown by all
the actions he and his agents have engaged in over the last few days (echo.msk.ru/blog/aillar/1268770-echo/).

Among the elements of this plan,
Illarionov are the Russian foreign ministry’s comments, Russian military
maneuvers, the seizure of government buildings and airports in Crimea,
labelling the secessionist Crimean prime minister “an authoritative actor,” the
uncontrolled actions of Russian soldiers and sailors in Crimea, the desecration
of the Ukrainian flag, attacks on Ukraine and Ukrainians in the Russian
official media, “cynical praise for the Berkut sadists,” the protection of
ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich, formation of groups ready to go
to Ukraine “and hundreds of other facts” as well.

“Many of these provocations
intentionally and demonstratively desecrate the Ukraine state, Ukrainian
national symbols and Ukrainian national consciousness,” Illarionov continues,
all a reflection of Putin’s hopes that there will be a reaction by the
Ukrainian authorities, that this will lead to bloodshed, and that then Moscow
can intervene.

Putin’s
goal is to provoke and to trigger conflicts of “all against all” in Ukraine, “political
conflicts, civil conflicts, and inter-confessional conflicts,” among groups in
all parts of Ukraine, the Moscow commentator says. For Putin to achieve his
goals, he needs corpses, “the more, the ‘better.’”

Their
appearance in turn, Illarionov argues, will lead not simply to civil conflicts
but “to a full-scale civil war in Ukraine.” That will allow Putin to argue that
Ukraine has been engulfed by “total chaos, collapse and catastrophe,” to claim
again as he did in April 2008 that “Ukraine has not succeeded as an independent
state,” and to get support for the restoration of stability and order by Russia
and its forces.

What this means for the new Ukrainian authorities is obvious,
the Moscow analyst concludes: They must hold out against this Putin attack, “display
patience and restraint,” and not allow themselves to be “provoked into a mass
suicide” lest they present themselves and their countries as “a desired victim
to the neighboring dictator.”

Staunton, February 28 – If anyone
reads the opening words of the American Declaration of Independence, a Russian
opposition commentator says, he or she will immediately see that the United
States is betraying its founding principles by refusing to stand up to Moscow in
defense of Ukraine.

In a commentary on Kasparov.ru,
Aleksandr Lukyanov says that despite mistakes and failures to follow through in
support of its principles in the past, the United States has more often acted
on the basis of them and made the world a better place on balance than it would
otherwise be (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=531058A8F183A).

But in recent years and particularly
with regard to Ukraine, Washington has not defended the basic principles its
founders proclaimed: the inalienable natural rights of every individual, the
legitimacy of states based on the expression of support of the governed and the
right of a people to resist despotism.

“In the majority of major and minor
conflicts of the20th century (both world wars, the cold war, the wars in Korea
and Vietnam, numerous conflicts in the Middle East and so on),” he continues, “America
has taken the side of those who were struggling for freedom against tyranny.”

Despite shortcomings and mistakes, “the
hypothetical ‘world without America’ that is the dream of Russian ‘patriots’
would have been an extremely uncomfortable place in which tyrant would have
been far more numerous and freedom far less than in the real world” that exists
at the present time.

That is what makes the last few
years so troubling to those who have looked to the United States, Lukyanov
says.“The history of American foreign
policy under Obama’s leadership,” he argues, “has been a history of defeats and
retreats” – in Iraq, in Syria, in Iran, and now tragically in Ukraine.

While some are
hoping that no one will do something untoward in Ukraine, there is mounting
evidence that “Putin will decide on armed intervention and the annexation of
Crimea,” under one pretext and cover or another.One hopes that this will not happen, but
recent history “does not give a basis for optimism.”

“The
only force capable of effectively guaranteeing the security and territory
integrity of Ukraine is the United States,” Lukyanov says. But recent events
suggest that that “the hope that the US will as in former times support those
who struggle for their freedom are today practically equal to zero.”

US Secretary of State John
Kerry has already declared, Lukyanov continues, that”America and Russia will not
get into a dispute over Ukraine.” Translated from diplomatic language, this
means or at least will be interpreted by Vladimir Putin to mean that “’we will
not support Ukraine; do what you want.’”

The many who promote
anti-Americanism “love to call America ‘the world gendarme.’ Alas,” Lukyanov
concludes, “the problem [now] is not that America is a gendarme but that the
gendarme has grown timid and no longer will defend peaceful residents from
hooligans who are no longer constrained” by the United States.

Staunton, February 28 – Despite discussions
in Moscow, Kyiv and the West about what the Kremlin plans to do in Crime,
Vladimir Putin’s plans for “separating Crimea from Ukraine” are “perfectly
transparent” and are likely to go ahead if they are not blocked by some
unexpected development, according to Leonid Radzikhovsky.

In today’s “Nezavisimaya gazeta,” the
Moscow commentator says that Putin has based his plans on the following
calculus.First, “it is obvious that the
majority of the population of Crimea is psychologically completely ready” for
this, the Crimean Tatars being the clear exception (ng.ru/blogs/leorad/krymskiy-plan-putina.php).

“Once a majority of a society WANTS
to separate,” Radzikhovsky says, “then the mechanism of separation is obvious:
a REFERENDUM” [stress here and below in the original). To set the stage,
someone – and it’s “not important” whether these are Ukrainian Berkuts or
Russian special forces – seizes the Crimean parliament and force it to call a
referendum.

That body sets a date: May 24, which
just happens to be the day before the elections of a new Ukrainian president. “It
is clear that after the referendum in Crimea, practically NO ONE will vote for
the president of a FOREIGN government of Ukraine. That is YOUR president, NOT
OURS. OUR president is Putin.”

The Russian military providescover for this with its “’unscheduled maneuvers’”
and thus “without a single shot, in view of the OVERWHELMING superiority in
numbers and technology,” it and Moscow winsThe exercise ends on March 7, but “the lesson” has been delivered, and
the Black Sea Fleet remains in place.

There is finally “the most delicate
moment: the LEGAL one,” Radzikhovsky says. Moscow has twice signed on as a
guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. How is it going to get around
this?It turns out that Viktor
Yanukovich provides the Russian government with just “the fig leaf” it needs.

Despite everything, the Moscow analyst
says, “It turns out that he is the LEGITIMATE PRESIDENT, and the authorities in
Kyiv are ILLEGITIMATE.” That means if Yanukovich says the referendum is
legitimate, Moscow can argue that it is living up to its obligations – and he
implies that many in the West will be unlikely to challenge that.

Indeed, Putin has already signaled that
this is the way he plans to grow by his statement that “it is necessary to
continue TO HELP Ukraine.”

But what about the US and NATO?According to Radzikhovsky, the Kremlin leader
knows that these are “Russophobes, aggressors and enemies” who are constantly
plotting against Russia. And he has managed to convince many in his own country
and not only there that this is the case. In any case, they are unlikely to
challenge Putin’s “Crimean plan” in a serious way.

That is because it will appear to be “WITHOUT
FORCE ... will be practically a gift, and will easily SKIRT AROUND ‘international
law.’”All of Russia will be “delighted,”
the West will come to “recognize” the new reality, and at least most of the
residents of Crimea will be “happy.”

What will Putin require for his “complete
happiness?”The answer, Radzikhovsky
points out, is “a great deal.”But no one
wants to think about that or about the way that this Kremlin move on Crimea
opens the way to other actions that many may not like but could find it harder
and harder to oppose.

Staunton, February 28 – Despite the
sometimes prickly relations between Moscow and Mensk, the Russian government
can live with Alyaksandr Lukashenka and his dictatorial regime. But if that
regime were to be overturned by a Maidan-like movement, the Kremlin would not
have the same levers that it is now using against Ukraine.

That reality, Aleksandr Klaskovsky suggests
in Naviny.by, means that Moscow is even more dependent on Lukashenka than it
was on Viktor Yanukovich and that Lukashenka may thus have even greater freedom
of action relative to the Russian Federation than many now suspect (naviny.by/rubrics/politic/2014/02/27/ic_articles_112_184734/).

Entitling his article “Can Moscow
count on its ‘fifth column’ in Belarus?” Klaskovsky says that Lukashenka by his
authoritarian suppression of the opposition has convinced Moscow that there is
no one in Belarus who could replace the dictator however independently of the
Kremlin’s line he might become.

Andrey Kazakevich, the director of the
Institute for Political Research, says that “today Moscow ‘does not have a particular
need to change power in Belarus,” but other analysts say that the Russian
authorities continue to monitor the situation closely in order to ensure they
could move in Belarus if necessary (bsblog.info/about/).

Kazakevich
says that in the 1990s, Moscow was particularly interested in supporting groups
like “the Slavic Assembly ‘Belaya Rus’” in the eastern portions of Belarus in
much the same way the Russian government has promoted ties with the leaders of
predominantly ethnic Russian regions in Ukraine.

But with the rise of Lukashenka, who
viewed such groups as “competitors,” Moscow backed away, given that the
Belarusian leader insisted on “a monopoly of ‘fraternal integration.’” When
tensions between Mensk and Moscow increased in 2010, however, the analyst says,
Russia again focused on such groups as “a soft force” to promote its interests.

Many analysts, however, suggested
that Moscow had missed whatever chance it had in this regard by its on
again-off again approach. Some older Belarusians were still interested, but in
the words of one analyst Klaskovsky cites, “there are almost no young people”
involved in such efforts.

It is very much the case, he
continues, that Belarusian society is split between those who look east and
those who look west, “but this split does not have such a clearly expressed
geographical character as it does in Ukraine. There are no regions in Belarus
of the compact settlement of [ethnic] Russians.”

Moreover, the share of ethnic
Russians has dropped significantly over the last decade to about eight percent,
a decline that reflects not outmigration but rather the aging of the
population.The most “’Russian’”
Belarusian cities are no more than 15.5 percent ethnic Russian, compared to
Crimea where Russians form “about 58 percent” of the population.

And Belarusians are increasingly
opposed to the absorption of their country by the Russian Federation.In 2007, 44 percent of Belarusians said they
would vote for unity with Russia if a referendum were held on the subject with
only 32 percent opposed. Last December, those numbers had changed to 24 percent
for and 51 percent against.

As Klaskovsky puts it, “support for ‘fraternal
unity’ in Belarusian society is gradually weakening,” at least in part, the
analyst says, because of the propaganda of the Lukashenka regime on its behalf
and against Moscow’s pretensions.

In looking for leverage against him,
some in Moscow have viewed the Russian Orthodox Church in Belarus as an ally,
but despite installing a Russian citizen as its metropolitan, the church does
not play that role, at least not effectively. Moreover, analysts say, that
because of Lukashenka’s actions, there is “no organized pro-Russia cell in the
Belarusian force structures.”

Nonetheless, analysts of Belarusian
affairs say that Moscow continues to look for possible levers there in the
hopes of being able to bring a pro-Russia politician to power “after Lukashenka”
and to do so without the risks that a direct military intervention would
necessarily entail.

Lukashenka unquestionably is aware
of this, Klaskovsky says, and he may be especially concerned about the
consequences of allowing the Russians to use an air base in his country, given
the way in which Moscow is currently using its Sebastopol naval base in Crimea
against Ukraine.

The deteriorating state of the
Belarusian economy and the unwillingness of the West to engage with “’the last
dictator of Europe’” mean, Klaskovsky says, that he may have little choice and that
his country will remain “a hostage of Russia for a long time if not forever,” even
if there is no possibility for the emergence of a Belarusian analogue to Crimea.

But Lukashenka’s very suspiciousness
of Russian intentions, his actions to ensure that the Belarusian security
forces are loyal to him, and the absence of a compact ethnic Russian community
there also mean that in the event of his departure from the scene, Belarus
could turn sharply to the West and Moscow would have far fewer means to prevent
that from happening.

Staunton, February 28 – Many Russian
officials believe that regionalism is a gateway to separatism and try to
suppress it whenever and wherever they can, Vadim Shteppa says. But regionalism
will grow into separatism only when Russian officials do not respect the
principles of federalism as specified in the Russian Constitution.

Unfortunately, Russian officials don’t
respect the constitution and support federalism and regionalism only in
neighboring countries like Ukraine where they see these phenomena as a means of
weakening or even detroying these states rather than as sources of strength (rufabula.com/articles/2014/02/26/the-boundaries-between-the-terms).

Shteppa begins his essay by calling
attention to the latest absurdity in the Russian position: Officials in Karelia
refused to register the Republic Movement of Karelia unless that group dropped
the word “regionalism” from its charter.The officials said it was “unclear” and therefore “suspicious” (vesti.karelia.ru/news/chinovniki_boyatsya_regionalizma/).

It would be a mistake, however, to
see this as a shortcoming of provincial authorities alone, Shteppa says. In
fact,”no ‘Ministry of Justice of Karelia’ now exists.” It is simply affront for
“federal bureaucrats” as indeed its official title makes clear: “The
Administration of the Justice Ministry of Russia for the Republic of Karelia.”

Following Roland Robertson, Shteppa
argues that regionalism today exists as “a dialectic partner” of globalization,
with the outcome being “glocalization” in which globalized firms take into
consideration regional differences. And he says that this trend is “more open
and progressive” than the one which supports “the format of nation states.”

Consequently, he continues,the political institutionalization of
regionalism via federalism is not a threat to the state but rather a partner
which will allow the state to take advantage of globalization rather than hide
behind an autarchic system and lose access to the new global economy (inache.net/post/835/).

Some separatist
theorists – and here Shteppa refers to Daniil Kotsyubinsky – nonetheless argue
that separatism is “the logical conclusion of regionalism,” but that argument,
Shteppa suggests, is too rigid and recalls the Marxist insistence that “’imperialism
is the highest stage of capitalism’ or that socialism must inevitably grow into
communism.”

“Separatism really can become the
result of regionalist development,” he continues, I within the framework of an
existing state, this development is blocked and’prohibited.’ Only in this case,
one must place the blame not on the regionalists but on the state itself” as
the situation in the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union
demonstrates.

But the situation
of the Russian authorities is even more absurd and from their point of view
counter-productive both within the country and abroad.Within the Russian Federation, Moscow is “liquidating”
federal arrangements, causing regions “to lose interest in one another,” and
thus opening the door to a new wave of separatism.

And abroad, as Moscow’s advocacy of
federalism in Ukraine demonstrates, it is pushing for a kind of “federalism”
that promotes separatism by ignoring the fact that Ukraine, while officially
and constitutionally a unitary state is in fact far more federal and regional
than is the Russian Federation.

That leads to the absurdity in which
“those who would like to see Russia a federation are against federalism for
Ukraine,” the Russian regionalist theorist says. “And on the contrary,
Ukrainian federalism is being actively promoted by those who want to see Russia
[remain] a unitary empire.”

It is obvious, he continues, that “in
both cases, we are observing a strange treatment of federalism as
crypto-separatism and an attempt to oppose the interests of the two countries.
But if one approaches the problem without preconceptions, [it becomes clear
that] both countries need real federalism.”

Many officials in eastern Ukraine have
spoken against federalism precisely because they too confuse federalism with
separatism and because they know they would have a hard time maintaining
themselves in office if they had to face the local electorate rather than be appointed
by one of their party colleagues in Kyiv.

Indeed, the expansion of genuine
federalism in Ukraine would reduce tensions between east and west because not
all issues would have to be solved in Kyiv, making many of them zero-sum game
event, but could be solved differently in different parts of the country at the
level closest to the electorate.

Everyone needs to get over the
stereotype that the east of Ukraine is ruled only by “’pro-Russia’”
officials.That is just as much a
propaganda nonsense as the assertion that the west of the country is controlled
by “’fascists’ and ‘Banderites.’” One must remember that in the December 1991
referendum, the east voted for independence just as did the west.

Thus, contrary to what many in Moscow
hope and what some in Kyiv fear, a more formally federalized Ukraine would contribute
to the maintenance of the territorial integrity of the country and, what is
more important, to the division of powers and the growth of democracy there.

The same thing is even more true for the
Russian Federation, Shteppa argues.It
too will be able to maintain its territorial integrity and make the transition
to democracy if and only if it devolves powers to the regions and becomes a
genuine and not just a nominal federal state.

A first step toward that desired
outcome, he suggests, is to be clear as to who are the real federalists.Many who call themselves federalists in
Russia today are in fact supporters of “a unitary-imperial policy, while those
who support federalism call themselves regionalists and are typically denounced
as separatists.

But of course, Shteppa concludes, this
is neither new nor confined to the legal system.“The CPSU nomenklatura did not see to build a
real ‘communist paradise’ for the entire people. It was content to create
special distribution arrangements for itself.Today’s [Russian] bureaucrats” are much the same, and the problem is
thus far broader.

Russian officials “loudly call for
patriotism but buy houses in ‘hostile’ Europe,” Shteppa notes. Meanwhile, he
says, Russia’s “priests fervently denounce ‘western perversions’ but close
their eyes to what is going on in their own monasteries and seminaries” (russ.ru/Mirovaya-povestka/Federaly-protiv-federalizma
).